


Bittersweet Homecoming

by RetroactiveCon



Series: Pieces of a Broken Mirror [2]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Aftermath, Doppelganger, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:54:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23857909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RetroactiveCon/pseuds/RetroactiveCon
Summary: “It’s not you.” She wraps her arms around his waist and squeezes tight. He feels warm and solid, real in a way nothing in the mirror universe did. He needs her to be his lightning rod, but just as much, she needs him to be her anchor right now. “She came into my home and she touched all my things and I can still feel her, Barry, like poison in our home.” She glances up at him. “How am I supposed to fit back in when she spent weeks altering everything so it feels like I don’t fit anywhere?”
Relationships: Barry Allen/Iris West
Series: Pieces of a Broken Mirror [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1726333
Comments: 12
Kudos: 74





	Bittersweet Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> It took far too long, but here's the sequel to [Iris Through the Looking Glass](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22680385), with my hopes for how the mirrorverse arc will resolve. Iris's reaction to mirror-Iris was heavily influenced by Olivia Dunham's response to Fauxlivia in Fringe season 3 (episode "Marionette," I think) - I watched her response and wondered if the Flash showrunners will allow Iris a moment to come to terms with having her life invaded in a similar way. Also, in case this could be triggering: I tagged for 'referenced rape' because Iris (and, reluctantly, Barry) call what mirror-Iris did in the last story rape by deception, but they don't go into much detail.

Iris is grateful, in kind of a twisted way, that Barry is too busy with Black Hole to come back to the apartment with her the first night she’s home. She’s watched the mirror impostor live her life for weeks. Coming back home doesn’t feel welcoming or relieving—it feels like stepping into something tainted. Nothing has been obviously misplaced (she would have been cross if the mirror clone moved all the furniture), but she imagines she can feel mirror-Iris on every surface she touches. The contamination feels sticky, like oil, even though she knows it’s all in her mind. 

Going into the bedroom is a mistake. She watched mirror-Iris fuck Barry on this bed. Watched them sleep cuddled together. Watched mirror-Iris rip away not just her life but her husband. 

“Get out.” Iris hears the words as if from a distance. She strips the bed in a hurry, tosses the sheets in the wash, and dumps in enough bleach to ruin them. It isn’t enough to cleanse the memory of the mirror clone from her bed, but it gives her something to do. 

While the sheets wash, she returns to the bedroom. This was her and Barry’s safe space, the one place they could be themselves without having to worry about their jobs or alter egos or responsibilities, and the mirror clone invaded that without any resistance. 

“She was in my bed,” Iris whispers. “In my clothes, in my space. I want—” Without thinking, she starts ripping clothes off their hangers. Each blouse feels oily-slick, wrong, just for its proximity to the mirror clone. “Get out. Get _out!”_

“Iris?”

“Get out!” She says it without thinking, her mind still on the mirror clone. When she whirls around, she finds herself face-to-face with Barry. He looks like she’s struck him. 

“Right,” he agrees. “Not my home. Sorry, I—sorry.”

“No.” Oh God. The mirror clone kicked him out. Iris saw how well the mirror clone played on his existing doubt—he probably thinks she feels the same way, impostor or not. “Oh, Barry, no, please don’t go. Please, I…” Tears sting the backs of her eyes. Her voice shatters like Eva’s mirror. “I can’t do this.” 

“Iris.” He steps to her side and folds her into a too-careful embrace. 

“Hold me,” she begs. When he doesn’t tighten his embrace, she snaps, “I won’t break, Barry, please! Hold me like I mean something to you!” 

Obediently, Barry pulls her closer and clings. Her heart shatters. This isn’t his fault—he didn’t have enough information to know that she was gone, she didn’t even tell him what she was doing the night she left for McCulloch Tech—but she’s treating him like the mirror clone would. Oh God, what if the clone had more of her traits than she realized? 

“It’s not you.” She wraps her arms around his waist and squeezes tight. He feels warm and solid, real in a way nothing in the mirror universe did. He needs her to be his lightning rod, but just as much, she needs him to be her anchor right now. “She came into my home and she touched all my things and I can still feel her, Barry, like poison in our home.” She glances up at him. “How am I supposed to fit back in when she spent weeks altering everything so it feels like I don’t fit anywhere?”

He cups her cheek. It’s been so long since he held her this way that she melts instantly into his touch. “Iris, I’m so sorry. I should have known something was wrong, I should have looked for you, I knew we weren’t clicking like we usually do but I was so selfish, I thought it was just me, I thought I fucked something up and then I wasn’t there for you when you needed me…”

“No, no, babe, I don’t blame you.” It’s her turn to pet his face. He turns into her touch, pressing penitent kisses to the skin of her palm. “She knew exactly what to say the whole time. I mean, I was dealing with Eva inside that mirror, and I wanted so badly to believe that she’d help me that I missed a lot of obvious signs. You were out here, you didn’t even know I went to McCulloch Tech, mirror-me had an answer for everything. I don’t blame you.”

Barry curls into her. “How can I make this better?” he begs. “This is your home, how do I make it feel like your home again?” 

“Just hold me,” she begs. Being trapped in that mirror world, alone save the woman responsible for all her misfortunes, has left her desperate for a gentle touch. Barry’s embrace is exactly what she needs. “I just need to feel like me again. I started—while I was in that mirror, I started losing all sense of who I was. I felt so disconnected. Now I come back out here and nothing is _right_ and that false version of me is all over everything…”

“Me too,” Barry confesses in a whisper. “She…Iris, I thought she was you, but that doesn’t make it right. I slept with her—I cheated on you, I didn’t know it but I did, I’m sorry…”

“Babe, no.” She remembers watching through the mirror as the false version of her took Barry to bed. At the time, still grappling with being trapped, she’d blamed Barry and loathed herself for it. By now, she’s come to terms with exactly what an effective liar the mirror clone was. Barry can’t be blamed for what he lacked the information to understand. “You said it yourself, you didn’t know that wasn’t me.”

“I should have known. Something wasn’t right, I felt it even then, you can’t cook…”

Iris lets out a sharp, shocked giggle. In seconds, both of them have erupted into slightly hysterical laughter. “Oh, so that was what tipped you off?” she demands through teary-edged giggles. 

“I’m sorry, but the lightning-bolt pancakes,” he explains. His laughter stops as quickly as it started. “But really, Iris. I cheated on you. You shouldn’t forgive me.”

She pets his cheek. “Did you know that wasn’t me?”

“No.” He shakes his head mournfully. Before he can protest—he clearly blames himself for how long it took him to realize what was happening—she lays her finger over his lips. 

“Would you have slept with her if you knew what she was?”

He shakes his head. “No! I wanted you, Iris. I only ever want you.” 

The earnest, unhesitating way he says this warms her out-of-place heart. As much as she’s his home, he’s always been hers. “Barry, there’s a term for when someone sleeps with a person who thinks they’re someone they aren’t. You’ve worked those cases, I know you have.”

He hangs his head. “Rape by deception,” he murmurs. “I know. But I didn’t go through anything like what you did, Iris. You were trapped and I didn’t look for you because I was too busy letting the mirror clone fuck me.” He sounds disgusted with himself. This is why the mirror clone was able to manipulate him for so long—all she had to do was convince him that every odd little detail was his fault. He shut himself down more effectively than she ever could. 

“Barry.” She cups his cheeks and coaxes him to meet her eyes. “I was kidnapped. You were manipulated and abused. Neither of us is at fault here, and unless I’m much mistaken…” She kisses the tip of his nose. It’s so good to be able to kiss him again; she might never stop. “We just kicked the asses of the people who did this to us.”

Barry nods and rests his forehead against hers. “It’s just going to take us some time to process that,” he murmurs. 

“Better believe it,” she agrees. Being back in Barry’s arms eases some of the feeling of wrongness, but she’s going to have to do a lot of laundry (and maybe reorganize the apartment) before this space will feel like hers again. “Oh, um…I should go put the sheets to dry.”

“Huh?” Barry glances over her shoulder and notices the stripped bed for the first time. “Oh. Do you want me to bring your laundry so you can throw a load in?”

She nods. Of course he understands; he’s too sweet to make fun of her for losing her mind over reminders of the mirror clone. “Yes please.” 

He gathers up the blouses she’s tossed on the floor. In the small space, using his speed makes the air choking-thick with ozone and sends static crackling through her hair, but he’s too happy to have his speed back for her to chide him. “Also, um.” He skids to a stop by the door. “Can I, like, spoil you tonight? Just, y’know. To take care of you and make you feel welcome.”

After all that time with nobody except a meta-villain for company, she’s hardly going to say no to a little pampering. She’s jumpy and off-balance enough that she might have to call a stop partway through, but it will do them both good to try. “Only if I get to cuddle you after.”

He nods and opens the door for her. “Deal.” As she steps through the door, he nuzzles against her side. “I love you, Iris.”

She presses a kiss to his temple. “I love you too, babe.”


End file.
